William Gifford was more than merely the editor of the Quarterly Review, for he was as well a Tory editor whose duty it was to pry into Whiggish roguery.

AS VERBAL CELIBATES What Words to Learn First The Analysis of Your Own Vocabulary Exercise The Definition of Words Exercise How to Look up a Word in the Dictionary Exercise Prying into a Word's Past Exercise V. INDIVIDUAL WORDS: AS MEMBERS OF VERBAL FAMILIES Words

" "If they catch you prying about, and find out that you've been watching them, you'll get an awful licking.

'Elzevir,' I said, 'I think there was one listening at the door, and there may be others in the house, so before we sit again let us take candle and go through the rooms to make sure none are prying on us.'

On prying about the belfry we discovered an old helmet, with the gilding on it still discernible, which we at first supposed to be intended as a decoration to some tomb; but its weight and size precluded that supposition.

Thy one eye pries in every draper's stall, Yet never thinks on poet Furor's need.

While she was thus gracefully employed, the agonized artist, his face suffused with blushes and fairly ghastly with an enforced smile, was painfully struggling to abstract himself, by changing the places of things, shifting the position of his easel, prying in a lost way into lumbered corners, and pretending to be in search of something, ingenious, but unable to disguise his chagrin.

If they did, and once started prying with that keen scent and indomitable persistence of theirs, we might as well chuck up.

Both worked together, groping and prying for a few seconds: evidently the something hidden had been forced deeply and firmly down.

I know you haue bene prying like the Deuill from East to West, to heare what newes: I will acquaint thee with some, & that a secret distillation before thou goest.

There are the long fingers of the cable and telegraph that pry through earth's hidden places, gathering choice bits of international gossip and handing them out to all the breakfast tables of the Great Neighborhood.

The tinsel glitter, and the specious mien, Delude the most; few pry behind the scene.

Then they took it to a secluded corner of the station, and with a borrowed hammer and chisel pried off the cover.

The Schipperke may fitly be described as the Paul Pry of canine society.

George Barstow only grunted and went on stooping and prying over 'is front garden.

An attempt to force the door brought upon us the resentment of a highly irritable swarm of big red wasps, who plainly regarded us as objectionable intruders; and Jane was really getting quite cross (she saysshe always doesthat it was I who lost my temper)before the bold sweeper, prying round the back premises, found an unbarred window, and the joy bells rang once more.

"Forthwith a guard at every gun Was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof Of Edgecombe's lofty hall; And many a fishing bark put out, To pry along the coast;

35 The Crab, the Scorpion, and the Bull We pry among them all; have shot High o'er the red-haired race of Mars, Covered from top to toe with scars; Such company I like it not!

"And what do you suppose he was prying around the Island for?" "I'm sure I have no idea,

It is time, he says, to be merry: Coridon, with his bold rout, Hath already been about, For the elder shepherds' dole, And fetched in the summer pole; Whilst the rest have built a bower To defend them from a shower, Sealed so close, with boughs all green, Titan cannot pry between; Now the dairy-wenches dream Of their strawberries and cream, And each doth herself advance, To be taken in to dance.

" Not another word could be pried from his set lips during breakfast, a gloomy meal to which Sally Bent came with red eyes, and Jerry Bent sullenly, with black looks at Sinclair.

On one occasion, when dispatch was of some importance, knowing his inquiring nature, she called her Scotch Paul Pry to her, opened the note, and read it to him herself, saying, "Now, Andrew, you ken a' aboot it, and needna' stop to open and read it, but just take it at once."

Nevertheless, with experienced eyes, I explore amid the bare alders and the huckleberry-bushes and the withered sedge, and in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of leaves, and pry under the fallen and decaying ferns, which, with apple and alder leaves, thickly strew the ground.

You may remember how once she had gone feeling and prying along the fair woodwork of these rooms for any secret of construction it might hold.

I see Diogenes prying among you with his perpetual fruitless lantern.